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Monday, February 6, 2012

Ah, month end craziness is over so I did pretty good on doing all of the contests this week.

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#MenageMonday - I was the judge this week so I was not eligible for the contest

(#WIP500)

Title: The Ways of the World

The wind was cold as it came across the harbor. Alana pulled her jacket tighter around her body as she walked. After she found the letters from her grandmother, she needed to get out of Wardville to get some clarity. The world as she knew it had just turned on its axis and nothing would ever be the same. David tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t ready. Knowing that he had a part in this too was even the more mind-boggling.

Alana was a Creator, from a family of Creators. She was the last of a long and ancient line of women who had the power to create. Sure other women could have babies, but Alana’s family was the first. It was their existence that allowed others to have progeny.

As she walked, she looked up at a sculpture of a family, with the father looking up to the heavens with his hand raised. The pose struck her and she approached the large installation to get a better look. When she got close enough, she was able to read the inscription at the bottom: The Protector Begs the Heavens.

Startled, she looked closer at the figures and saw a spiral necklace hanging from the woman’s neck.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her knees weakening as her hand reached up to touch her own spiral pendant. Alana dropped to her knees in front of the statue in shock, not noticing the cold cement.

David was her Protector. Did this mean that he was also supposed to be the father of her children? Sure, he and his father before him and his father before him were entrusted with protecting the Creators, but Alana had no idea it meant this too. She cared about David, but did she care about him that much?

Was this statue a symbol of the way it was supposed to be? If this was the case, why wasn’t her father a Protector as well?

Alana finally rose to her feet a bit unsteadily. Her grandmother’s letters answered many questions, but brought many more new questions to light. The mysterious ways of the world were even more occluded than before.

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#MotivationalMonday

(#WIP500)

Title: Letters of Love

I’ll never forget that smile, or the way you laugh, Alana’s grandmother, Evelyn, said in one of the many letters she had written to Alana before she died. Alana continued to read as her eyes began to water. With a shaking hand, she wiped away the tears before they fell, and read on.

Alana discovered the letters in a box one day when she was going through her grandmother’s things in Evelyn’s old roll-top desk. It was just a seemingly ordinary cardboard box except it had Alana’s name written on it in her grandmother’s familiar looping script. Curious, she opened the box and was overwhelmed with what she found.

There were so many letters, spanning nearly twenty-five years. It looked like Evelyn wrote several a year, sometimes more depending on what happened. It looked like she started writing them the year Alana’s parents died and Evelyn began raising her, ending just days before Evelyn passed away.

A good portion of the letters were stories about Alana’s childhood, anecdotes that Evelyn wanted to remember and preserve. Alana found herself laughing then crying as she read. Her grandmother had a keen sense of humor that came out very clearly in her written thoughts.

Some of the letters were about Alana’s mother and father, two people that Alana knew very little about. When she realized the letter was about them, she dropped everything else and poured through her grandmother’s words.

Evelyn told her about Cecilia growing up, sometimes pausing in her story to make a commentary on how alike Alana and Cecilia were at that age. Alana smiled, thinking on how precocious her mother must’ve been.

She read on, going through several years’ worth of letters before she realized how late it had gotten. Alana would have continued reading, except a familiar voice called from the first floor.

“I’m up here, David,” she called out, her voice catching at the end before she could stop it.

His heavy footsteps made quick work of the stairs and he was in her bedroom before she had gotten much farther down the page she was reading. He burst in and rushed over to her side.

“Alana, are you okay? It sounded like you were upset.” He gently touched the side of her face, his expression wavering from concern to confusion.

She smiled as fresh tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “I’m fine. I found some letters from my grandmother, telling me about me and my parents.”

David smiled and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the last bits of her tears.

“They must be very special letters.”

“They are,” she agreed.

“Are you still up for dinner?”

Her smile brightened as she carefully packed the letters back up. “Yes, please.” The not-so-quiet growl of her stomach agreed, making them both laugh.

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#5MinuteFiction I WON! Wooooooooooooo!

Title: Freedom Isn’t Free

A missile has no conscience, no concept of right or wrong. It merely exists in its singular purpose. Once the purpose is fulfilled, it has no further use or added benefit.

Reece sat quietly as he waited, knowing his mission was that of the missile. There was no further action required of him after his task was done. If he survived, there wouldn’t be anything he would want or able to do.

The life of a suicide bomber was short, but had such purpose. Reece believed strongly in his cause, the freedom of his people from the Aanti overlords who had imprisoned them so many years ago. Sure, his people lived in relative peace, but they were not free. They couldn’t do anything without Aanti approval, and if they did something without, were heavily punished.

Reece carefully crawled into position in the subterranean tunnels beneath the Aanti’s command center, being as quietly as he could so he wouldn’t trip the motion sensors.

With a final breath and a prayer, he pressed the trigger.

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#TuesdayTales

Title: Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About

The red light illuminated the couple as they danced. The audience watched breathlessly as the man and woman moved seamlessly within their tango. While they both enjoyed the spotlight, this performance was more than just a showcase of their abilities.

They weren’t just dance partners but a couple, and after this performance, they were going to announce their relationship to the world. Every searing glance, every sultry step, and every sexy sway would analyzed in detail, revealing what had been hidden. They were prepared for the brouhaha that would come, as long as they were together, and dancing.

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#HumpDayChallenge I was an Honorable Mention! :)

Title: Pass the Salt

In an unprecedented decision, the city administration of Cape Coral decided to gift the town with copious amounts of road salt, something entirely unnecessary for the Florida town and detrimental to the pavement.

The populace crowed over the blunder, demanding that the mayor be entombed in the salt for the duration of his term. He protested, of course, saying that all the salt would dry out his delicate complexion and would ruin his chances of winning the next Cape Coral Queen Pageant.
The riot that followed would go down in the record books as the saltiest food fight ever.

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#ThursdayThreads - I also got an honorable mention here! WOo!

(#WIP500)

Title: The Truth of the Matter

Alana sat back in the chair, stunned over the information she had unearthed. David was still pouring over his stack of letters and documents and hadn’t noticed she had stopped.

The initial stack of letters she found from her grandmother were relatively harmless. They were just innocent stories about Alana’s and Cecilia’s childhoods, things that were the same about mother and daughter, and just things that Evelyn thought were memorable.

These stack of letters she had in her hand were of a much different variety. They also disclosed history about Alana’s family, but a darker more mysterious history. It also revealed that her parents death was not a mere accident.

“David, take a look at this,” Alana whispered, her hands shaking as she handed the page she was reading to him.

He took the offered papers but looked at her intently “Jeez, Ali, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Alana chuckled with a humorless laugh. “Perhaps not a ghost, but you’ll understand once you read it.”

As David read, his jaw fell open in shock. He looked at her incredulously. “Alana, do you know what this means?”

She nodded. “Yep. And those same people are after me.”

David frowned, his face becoming fierce. “No doubt it’s a murder in the case of your parents, but I’ll be damned if I let them do the same to you.”

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#FridayPictureShow

Title: Passionate Storm

Solitude was his preferred companion, but Collin enjoyed the additional presence of the storm all around him. The waves crashed against the old lighthouse walls like a scorned woman raging, a furious tempest of wind and rain.

He stepped outside of the main door to embrace the gale, the water lapping around his arms and legs, sucking at his limbs in an attempt to join him into the brink.

Collin pulled away before he was entranced completely, and slipped inside his welcoming column. The storm shrieked in anger at his disappearance, pounding against the old lighthouse with vigor and ire.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Thirty-one days into #WIP500, and I have been coasting around 55% of the quota. What does that mean? That I've managed to write 500 words a day only about 55% of the time. Some recent changes with work will hopefully make it easier to get more words in, but nevertheless, I will continue to try.

The various flash fiction contests I participate in each week have helped. It has allowed me to get into and stay in the universe of my story, which helps the creative spirit. It also has allowed me to delve into aspects of my WIP that I haven't gotten to yet (I'm the type that has to write in sequence: chapter 1 then chapter 2 then chapter 3 and so on). It helps visualize more of the story as I write.

My goal this month is to get farther, and move up my percentage up to 75% of the goal. To make that goal, I need to write more on the days I do write. If I want to get to 100%, I will need to write about 1000 words, Monday through Friday. Since I don't write much on the weekends, this will be my new goal.

Hope that any of you that are working on current projects or are also participating in #WIP500 are also having success with your writing.